Picking up the pieces after Bruins' epic collapse
There will be no running it back for the Bruins next season. A hard salary cap that is expected to go up by only $1 million (with an outside shot of a $4+ million jump) necessitates hard decisions for every team.
The Bruins will have more of them to make than most. According to @BruinsCapSpace, the Bruins are currently projected to have just $4.94 million in cap space, with $4.5 million in bonus overages from Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci’s incentive-laden deals cutting their available cap space nearly in half.
They have eight unrestricted free agents (Bergeron, Krejci, Tyler Bertuzzi, Nick Foligno, Tomas Nosek, Garnet Hathaway, Dmitry Orlov and Connor Clifton) and three restricted free agents (Jeremy Swayman, Trent Frederic and Jakub Lauko).
You don’t have to be very good at math to figure out that there is not enough money to sign everyone. As it stands right now, there’s maybe enough to sign one or two guys on that list.
As was the case last offseason, any discussion about this offseason has to start with Bergeron and Krejci. Last summer, the two franchise legends decided to return on team-friendly one-year deals. They’re now a year older, with Bergeron turning 38 in July and Krejci having just turned 37. Neither made it to the finish line healthy, with Bergeron missing four playoff games with a herniated disc in his back and Krejci missing three playoff games and the last six regular-season games with an unspecified upper-body injury.
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Bergeron said after Sunday’s Game 7 loss that he would take some time and talk things over with his family before making a decision on his future. Krejci was not made available to media after the game. We are expected to hear from him Tuesday afternoon during the team’s “breakup day.”
Pavel Zacha, locked in for four more seasons, looked ready to step into a top-two center role should one of the veterans call it a career. If both retire, the Bruins will need to add another center if they hope to remain competitive, or otherwise settle for a bridge plan and hope that a prospect like Georgii Merkulov or Matthew Poitras develops into a top-two center in the not-too-distant future. Going out and acquiring one would not be easy, A) because of the cap situation outlined above, and B) because top-two centers are not readily available, via trade or free agency.
Beyond Bergeron and Krejci and the center position in general, the Bruins have tough calls to make not just on those remaining free agents, but also on guys who are under contract. The Bruins’ offseason is unlikely to be as simple as just picking who on that free agency list they’re spending their $5 million on and then letting everyone else walk.
If they want to re-sign more than $5 million worth of their free agents, or dip into the league-wide free agency pool, they can look to trade players off the active roster to free up more money.
That is a path they will likely explore, because they probably do want to keep more than one of their UFAs. Bertuzzi, acquired at the trade deadline, tied for the team lead in postseason scoring with 10 points (5 goals, 5 assists), although he was also a minus-3 at 5-on-5 thanks in part to some shaky defensive-zone play.
At 28 years old and set to hit unrestricted free agency for the first time, Bertuzzi could be in line for the biggest contract he’ll get in his career. The Bruins will have some work to do if they’re going to free up enough money to be able to afford that, but we would expect them to at least try. Bertuzzi scored the greasy playoff goals the Bruins had been looking for in recent years, and he had some natural chemistry with David Pastrnak.
Orlov, also a deadline acquisition, is another guy they’d like to keep in a perfect world. While he had some struggles in his own end in the playoffs, he also led the team with eight assists. Combining Orlov with Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm gave and would continue to give Boston as formidable a top three on defense as there is in the league, playoff disappointment aside. But Orlov is 31 and could be in line for the last big payday of his career. Again, if he wants to go to the highest bidder, the Bruins will have a hard time being able to match.
Foligno, Nosek, Hathaway and Clifton were all valuable depth pieces this season, but the Bruins simply may not have the money to spend on depth, unless any of them want to stick around on the cheap. Next year’s depth may very well have to come in the form of cheap youngsters from AHL Providence, with training camp and preseason battles for third- and fourth-line jobs in particular.
On the restricted front, they should want to keep Swayman. He’s 24 years old and was excellent in the second half of the regular season. Where things get interesting is the discussion around the possibility of trading a goalie in order to address needs elsewhere (i.e. acquiring a No. 1 center) or to recoup some draft picks (the Bruins currently have zero first- or second-round picks in the next two drafts).
Swayman would have a lot of trade value for the reasons mentioned above. Ullmark is five years older, but is going to win the Vezina Trophy this year and is on a very reasonable contract (two more years at $5 million per year). That makes him an attractive trade chip as well.
The two are great friends and gave the Bruins historically great goaltending in the regular season, but things undoubtedly got uncomfortable in the playoffs. The Bruins ditched the rotation and rode Ullmark for the first six games despite him reportedly dealing with a “debilitating” injury, only to finally turn to Swayman in Game 7.
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If the Bruins remain organizationally opposed to a playoff rotation, then they might as well trade from a position of strength to fill holes elsewhere. Brandon Bussi, coming off a strong season in Providence, can be the cheap backup. However, if the Bruins are now more open to a playoff rotation after seeing Ullmark break down this year, then bringing back both Ullmark and Swayman would make sense.
Frederic scored a career-high 17 goals this season, good for sixth on the team. The Bruins would presumably want to keep him, especially since he can shift to center in the bottom six if needed. Being a healthy scratch for two playoff games might leave some bitter feelings, but next year’s team is not going to be as deep as this year’s, and Frederic would be a lock for a regular lineup spot.
Lauko can be retained for cheap money and could win a regular spot of his own in the bottom six after playing well when he got opportunities this season.
When it comes to potentially trading away players under contract, the discussion starts on defense. Even with Orlov potentially departing, the Bruins still have five left-shot defensemen under contract. Lindholm isn’t going anywhere, but one or more of Matt Grzelcyk (one year left at $3.69 million), Derek Forbort (one year, $3M), Mike Reilly (one year, $3M) or Jakub Zboril (one year, $1.14M) could be in play.
The Bruins currently only have seven forwards on NHL contracts for next season (Pastrnak, Zacha, Brad Marchand, Taylor Hall, Jake DeBrusk, Charlie Coyle and A.J. Greer), so there’s no surplus to trade away from there like there is on defense.
However, if Don Sweeney and company wanted to prioritize keeping Bertuzzi, moving Hall (two years, $6M AAV, modified no-trade clause) or DeBrusk (one year, $4M) could be the trade-off to free up the money. Hall (5 goals, 3 assists) and DeBrusk (4 goals, 2 assists) were both good in the playoffs, though, and DeBrusk had career highs in goals (27) and points (50) in the regular season despite missing 18 games, so the Bruins may not be too eager to move either. Same goes for Coyle, if for no other reason than the fact that the Bruins need more, not fewer centers.
One thing’s for sure: Sweeney has his work cut out for him, especially if the primary goal is to remain a playoff team. The other option would be to hit the reset button like he did when he took over as general manager in 2015 and traded away Milan Lucic and Dougie Hamilton for draft picks, initiating not a full rebuild, but a one- or two-year retool.
Next year’s Bruins will not be as deep as this year’s. They will not set regular-season records again. There is a good enough foundation to remain competitive, though. How Sweeney decides to try to build on that, and how much he’s even able to do, will be fascinating to watch in the months ahead.
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